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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
James P. Blanchard
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 44 | Number 1 | July 2003 | Pages 101-105
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - IFE Chamber Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A317
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Rapid surface heating can induce large stresses in solids. A relatively simple model, assuming full constraint in two dimensions and no constraint in the third dimension, can adequately model stresses in a wide variety of situations. This paper derives this simple model, and supports it with criteria for its validity. Phenomena that are considered include non-zero penetration depths for the heat deposition, spatial non-uniformity in the surface heating, and elastic waves. Models for each of these cases, using simplified geometries, are used to develop quantitative limits for their applicability.
